


Stars, Hide Your Fires

by nerfherder_han



Category: Magi: Adventure of Sinbad (Anime), Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Canon Divergence, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Suicide, Time Travel Fix-It, majority of the first section of this fic is sinbad & oc, mentions of other relationships, the two ships mentioned take some time to reach, very slow burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:00:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23769664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerfherder_han/pseuds/nerfherder_han
Summary: "...let not light see my black and deep desires."
Relationships: Mu Alexius/Original Character, Serendine Dikumenowlz Du Parthevia/Original Character, Sinbad (Magi) & Original Character
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shiftseveny](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shiftseveny/gifts), [NirvanasDemise](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NirvanasDemise/gifts).



**I.**

Their usual song and dance, raising and sinking dungeons, came to a halt shortly after they met face-to-face. It was far from his first deviation, most certainly not one of his biggest, but it was one he personally felt had to happen. The strife between them had gone on for too long, even if the other magi wasn’t entirely aware of just how much he was hated.

Magic flared, ice flying everywhere and lightning scorching the earth where they battled. Both of them were bleeding and exhausted, hellbent on survival once it became obvious that only one of them was walking away from this fight alive; their borgs had long since shattered under the pressure of their attacks, the only thing that remained to shield them being the debris of the small shack and the walls of the Great Rift littered along the ground.

It was when, finally, the other magi’s staff was knocked from his hand that the deviation would truly begin. No, less knocked out of his hand—it was more that the entire arm that held it was blown clean off, a large spatter of dark red painting the remains of the shack door. The magi had cried, screamed, curled in on himself; and when he looked up again at his opponent, his predator, he could do no more than sob pitifully. He was not a fighter, he’d begged as such when he’d wanted to avoid the fight, and this shone through when faced against his opponent’s own rage.

The magi Yunan, battered and broken on the floor of the Great Rift, considered it a mercy that the magi Judar—impossibly adult Judar, who should never have been born yet—swiftly crushed him to death beneath the greatest mass of ice he could conjure with his remaining strength. No sooner had the elder magi died, flattened and destroyed beyond repair, his rukh fled his mortal form and returned to Ugo’s side.

Or so it should have.

As soon as Judar saw the gold fluttering rise from under the ice, he readied his staff. Yunan coming back with his memories intact, aware of the danger Judar posed to destiny, would be a bothersome obstacle. It would be easier to siphon the magi’s rukh, trap Yunan within his staff and use his power. A fitting punishment, to boot, for all the horrors Yunan’s meddling forced Judar to live through. Yunan was powerless to fight back as he was absorbed into the staff, and not once did he think to destroy his rukh and prevent Judar from taking everything he had to offer.

Judar was breathless as he stumbled back. He lowered his staff, caked in blood just like his clothes, and he cast his gaze to the sky above. Any moment now he would feel it—that shift in the world, not unlike a singularity coming into existence—and he would finally know as much peace as the world could allow for the time being. The clouds had already greyed, suffocated the sun and forced it into hiding. If he listened hard enough, he’d hear a distant rumble of thunder slowly ambling in the direction of the Great Rift.

When the first raindrop hit his face, just at his cheekbone, a crashing weight landed on his shoulders. His heart sank, almost overwhelmed by the force that echoed through the world. And then, just as quickly, it ceased.

Yunan was well and truly trapped, a weapon for Judar to use when he saw fit that could never be reborn until his confines were destroyed or Judar released him. There would be no obstacles hindering his mission from the blond any longer.

And so succeeded the first deviation.

***

“What an eyesore,” he commented upon seeing the dungeon Baal. He stood in the middle of the streets of Parthevia, soldiers and civilians alike avoiding him. His foreign garb and openly wielded staff kept them all at arms length, like they knew the frightening power he held within himself would be released at the slightest provocation. Luckily for them, they were the least of his interests.

One brave merchant had approached him, led him through the streets to the palace when he flashed some coins in his direction. Yunan must have known his life was in danger when he felt Judar enter the timeline. Baal should not have been erected so soon, after all. Then again, Yunan had tried to distract him by summing more dungeons than usual in his wake—a hopeless ploy to make Judar lag behind, but after so much practice undoing Yunan’s handiwork, it was practically child’s play to multitask.

“The tower?” the merchant asked. Judar nodded and crossed his arms over his chest.

“The dungeon, yes. Shouldn’t be a surprise, though, considering the eyesore who raised it.”

“I—I beg your pardon?”

Judar grunted dismissively. He looked up and down the street, at the people who lingered in their gazes as they crawled past. Everyone was keeping their distance, which made getting to the dungeon a little easier he supposed.

Destiny favoured the reincarnation of David. But Judar could throw destiny for a loop every once in a while. Like chasing down Yunan and destroying his work, it was something he had plenty of practice in. Practice and, he supposed, successes—but only this early in the timeline. Children were easy to push onto other paths, even if they had some supernatural inclination towards the “right” one regardless.

He’d replaced Baal with Amon in the last attempt, hoping Sinbad’s inability to read would throw him off when it came to Amon’s labyrinth. But that had been a failure, and a different djinn was required this time around. A djinn who could trick the mind and heart rather than take advantage of one’s shortcomings.

Judar smiled to himself. Yes, that would do perfectly.

“Stand back,” he ordered the merchant, “and get as many soldiers away from the dungeon as possible. Or don’t. I don’t particularly care if any survive what I’m about to do.”

He tapped his staff against the ground once, and soon enough his body began to rise. The higher and higher he got, the further away the horror on the merchant’s face was. The disregard for the lives of the soldiers probably shocked him—or perhaps it was the implication that Judar would rid the country of the dungeon from this very spot. Either way, the merchant wasn’t wrong.

He towered over even the dungeon when he finally aimed his staff—aimed Yunan—at Baal. There would be no easy road for Sinbad, not as long as Judar breathed, and the first dungeon would always, always be the first step to assuring that much. From this height the streets of Parthevia were eclipsed by the lake surrounding Baal, the humans below no more than ants in Judar’s vision. If any of them were still down there, they only had themselves to blame for not fleeing sooner.

The earth rumbled. From around the dungeon, the lake rippled and stirred. From this height he would not hear the stunned screams of Parthevians, nor would he notice the attention he’d garnered from the palace deeper in the country. Judar just watched, stare blank as ever, as the tower collapsed in on itself and sank into the earth of its island. Dust clouds swallowed the island whole, blinded all who remained and had survived, and when it finally settled the island was back to its barren self. No life, no structures. Only a large expanse waiting to be noticed.

Notice it, Judar did.

With Baal gone, Judar was free to pick from the other dungeons to sabotage Sinbad. He smiled to himself, fondly recalled the djinn and their abilities from memory. He hadn’t had the chance to experiment with some djinn, only knowing that a few were still not good enough to hinder Sinbad yet. But this one, he was certain it would do the trick.

The dungeon that rose from Baal’s remains was smaller, foliage springing forth in its wake as the structure climbed in the shape of a cube. This dungeon would not curve, would not look like a tower—this dungeon, Judar noted, would only stand a fraction of Baal’s height and curve into a dome. No different to the eyes of insects, the glass windows along the dome taking on a honeycomb pattern as vines snaked in and out like thread from a needle. It looked like something one expected to see in a wealthy city, something entirely different to what one saw in Parthevia. Baal at least blended in, but this one—this one would stand out like a sore thumb.

Sinbad, if he were ever drawn to it, would be like a fly landing in the honey trap. There would be no surviving this dungeon.

Judar lowered his staff, satisfied, as the dungeon Vepar stood in place of Baal. A djinn of light and illusions would do the trick, he told himself, especially when the heart could be swayed so easily under the right amount of pressure.

And so succeeded the second deviation.

***

Gou still remained, safe and sound, in the years he spent wandering and waiting. He didn’t dare approach, nor did he dare make attachments. It wouldn’t take long for the monsters in Kou to ravage the land, to destroy Gou and its people in the worst ways possible, and Judar didn’t have the strength to witness it once more.

Sometimes things deviated without his meddling. Ever since Uraltugo began experimenting with timelines, rearranging things not unlike Judar had been, some surprises would pop up every so often. Not every surprise was big enough to make a difference, though—the most these surprises had amounted to was delaying the inevitable, and even then Judar had made the mistake of trusting the delay would change  _ anything _ .

In the fourteen years he searched the world for Uraltugo’s experiments, not a single deviation reared its head. Judar raised a few dungeons as he went along, all of them out of the way and impossible to conquer in their own right by the people who stumbled upon them. Even as the years flew by and Judar found himself lonely enough to talk to the rukh trapped in his staff, nothing else had appeared.

When the fourteen year wait ended, he flew back to Parthevia. No matter what, he wouldn’t give up  _ this _ deviation. A few forced resets thanks to Uraltugo had taken many joys from him, but these three were the ones Judar refused to budge on. Yunan being taken out of the equation and Baal being sunk were pushing it, he’d learned—but his third demand, his third deviation, was inconsequential in Uraltugo’s eyes.

In Parthevia, a fourteen-year-old Serendine Dikumenowlz Du Parthevia would be standing in her court. Viewed only as a mere girl by her peers, humoured in her attempts to play swordsman, she only had her poison and the love of her people to support her. A fourteen-year-old Serendine Dikumenowlz Du Parthevia would be staring up at a much older Barbarossa of House Dragul, dread sinking in as what he had planned dawned on her. A fourteen-year-old Serendine Dikumenowlz Du Parthevia would be faced with the reality that, if she wanted the throne, she would only be considered worthy if she had a man of great standing by her side.

A man she’d been promised to in private beforehand, who wanted the perfect moment to force her into a public proposal.

Judar always took joy in the look on Barbarossa’s face when the rehearsed speech began to spill through Judar’s lips. Always revelled in the way the dust would clear, and the arrogant young man found himself no longer in control for the first time in his life. There was no intimidating a magi into submission, and he would learn that as many times as Judar saw fit with each reset.

His borg was up before he even crashed into the wall of the palace. Debris flew everywhere, barely missing nobles and guests alike, and a mass of hysteria broke out. Judar would never let the dust settle whenever he arrived before speaking—he always held himself with confidence and authority, a magi in his own right who would have his choice of king regardless of what anyone else said.

“Princess Serendine Dikumenowlz Du Parthevia,” he boomed, just like all the other times. He would see the barest hints of pink shift away from Barbarossa’s outline, and the king would be the first fully visible as the dust shifted—intrigued that his daughter had been called by name. “Your ambition and valour have not gone unnoticed.”

His footsteps were the only sound throughout the whole room as he walked in the direction of Serendine. The guests had all shut up as soon as her name was called, all of them eager to see the scene play all. All of them, save for Barbarossa.

“The heart of a lion.”  _ Closer, closer _ . “The wit of a fox.”  _ Closer, closer _ . “The bite of a spider.”  _ Closer, the sheen of her armour matching that of his staff. _ “Beloved by her people and prepared to lead them to prosperity no matter the cost. These are, without a doubt, the traits that impress a magi such as I.”

The dust finally cleared, and he could see Barbarbossa’s outstretched hand still reaching for Serendine. But it was faltering, rage-filled eyes boring into Judar as the smaller man approached his bride-to-be. Serendine stood shocked, visibly holding her breath; Judar was unsurprised to see her hand hovering over the hilt of her sword.

Judar stopped a few feet from her, closer to her than Barbarossa was, and he dropped to the floor in a kneel without hesitation. Staff laid flat on the floor beside him, Judar pressed his forehead to the floor and finally posed the big question: “Please, accept your destiny as my chosen king.”

The shock that the king practically screamed aloud was enough to startle his court into movement again. No sooner had life come back to the nobles, rumours of Serendine—the little girl who played warrior and could  _ never _ hope to rule without a husband—being a magi’s  _ chosen king _ began to leak out of the palace.

It was a small deviation, giving her the title of King Vessel a year or so early, but it was enough to give her some agency she lacked in earlier timelines.

And so succeeded the third deviation.

***

Finally it happened. Not in the way he expected, but sometimes Sinbad acted out. As long as he pursued the “right” path, it didn’t matter  _ when _ or  _ how _ he went about it. Judar just knew that, when he saw the small boat dock at Vepar’s island and the long, purple hair sprint towards the entrance, it was time.

Serendine sat reading in her room, not unlike her for this hour of the night, and made notes of the poisons and antivenoms she kept on her person. When Judar flew gracefully in from the window, silent footsteps landing upon the floor, she merely threw a soft greeting over her shoulder to him.

After the announcement that she was his chosen king, Serendine was no longer a princess. She was higher, more important than that now—an archon, granted a piece of Parthevia to rule over for herself as a trial for her eventual kingship. She was no longer a little girl playing warrior. She was someone whose standing meant something in Parthevia.

“Archon Serendine,” he said, drawing out her name like it was something to be savoured. Serendine’s ears would always turn red at the way he spoke to her, still not used to being referred to with such reverence. “It’s time.”

The words made her jump out of her seat. Serendine stared at him, wide-eyed, and repeated it back to him.

“Yes,” Judar told her. “It’s time I raise a dungeon for you—one of your choosing, for your taking—and we make your status as a King Vessel official.”


	2. Chapter 2

**II.**

Her parents always loved to brag that she’d been born just before the volcano had erupted. For the first time in so many years, people deeming it safe enough to live near, and it began to spit smoke and embers as soon as she drew breath. They would then go on to brag that, mere moments later as they fled their shack in search of safety, her brother followed and immediately guided the family out of danger.

She always thought it was bullshit. People exaggerated all the time, and even though she knew there was something special about her brother, she failed to see what was so great about being born _just_ before a natural disaster hit. If anything, her birth was an omen—a warning that the singularity would arrive just as quickly as she had. Being reborn into fiction was cruel enough, as was being reborn into a family whose members played some kind of important role in the story. But being born the sibling of the man who would go on to kill so many… That was a special kind of cruelty, and some days she wished the volcano had actually killed them—if only to spare her a lifetime of suffering.

Tison village was far from a wealthy village. Parthevia was far from a wealthy country. But with the aftermath of war still clinging to the air, Parthevia’s victory somehow still a point of pride for its people, no one could even tell that things were dire. It wasn’t until after more wars were started, more men were demanded for the army, that anyone even noticed. And who did they turn their anger towards when expressing it to their king would have them killed?

Her family.

It wasn’t like people talked about it. Who would bat an eye when kids in the village got into fights? After all, she fought with her brother too—violently, even, forcing their parents to keep them separated for days at a time. Belligerent villagers with children, disappointed that a man with only one leg and limited strength wouldn’t go back out to fight another war, setting those children upon his own looked too much like playground scuffles for anyone to say anything.

There would be an unspoken status quo to their family. Karima had lived and survived the eruption, fought tooth and nail from hour one; she was a survivor, mature despite being just a toddler, and because of that she was quickly given her role in the household—a protector for Sinbad, infinitely more naive and powerless than her as he clung to their parents with a big smile on his face. So there was little surprise when he ran to her for help during those fights with kids in the village, and even less surprise when Badr fussed over Sinbad’s injuries more than her own.

She may as well have been his guard or something. Even when Badr paid attention to her scrapes and bruises, his first and final words to her were always a plea to continue protecting her brother.

Yeah, right. Protect someone who was favoured by destiny? Who grew up to become a complete and utter monster? Not happening.

It was why she considered herself entirely justified tonight. She’d been waiting for the moment Sinbad happened upon Yunan, each day that passed worsening Esra’s health. She’d kept herself sharp, crafted crude bows that only lasted for so long. She didn’t fight with Sinbad as often now that they were older, but she still kept her distance whenever their mother wasn’t around to see her animosity. As much as Karima—no, even her old self—hated Sinbad and everything he would become, Esra didn’t deserve anxiety during her final years over it. Not when Badr bad left so dramatically, sentenced to death within the dungeon Parthevia sought to conquer, and publicly pleaded for his children to take care of one another.

Karima was justified. Just today, before sunset, soldiers had come to threaten Sinbad into joining their ranks. A backwards method of conscription, if she ever saw one, but the fact remained that Sinbad’s “adventure” was due to begin at sunrise. And if Badr wanted her to take care of Sinbad—well, what better way to keep her annoying, headstrong little brother out of trouble than to take trouble from under his nose? She was better prepared for Baal than he was, and she’d snuck a decent amount of painkillers into his dinner tonight; preparing even that amount months in advance had been a pain in the ass. She even made sure to take one of Esra’s earrings with her, fastening it to the end of her bow to serve as a metal vessel. If the only challenges she had were the key to Baal’s chamber and, unlikely as it was in the dead of night, fighting Drakon for the right to be chosen, then she was more than ready.

But Yunan never appearing still bugged her.

True, Yunan had been iffy about kinging Sinbad. And true, the most Yunan _did_ do had been telling Sinbad he could access Baal’s power. Maybe threw him all the way back to Tison with some of his bounty, but aside from that… Nothing. It shouldn’t bother her as much—but Kari was expecting the story to go on as intended, to force her to play along. She hadn’t expected one minor catalyst to never show up.

It still worked in her favour, she supposed. Without Yunan to _suggest_ Sinbad tackle Baal for the power to become a king, Karima would be able to sneak in the night before and get a headstart. She knew what to do, just needed to get the weapons necessary. Sinbad wouldn’t be clinging to her heel, asking to come with her like they always did as kids, and Karima could prevent him from starting his adventure. Hell, having Baal and leaving Parthevia, and Sinbad, behind would probably even let her avoid Tison’s ultimate fate.

Maybe Kari would be staring at Sinbad through the bars, years down the road when the fancy for a country took her.

The idea kept her rowing the boat with all her strength, wasting no time under the blanket of night. She was so consumed by the idea, even, that she never even noticed the magi silhouetted by moonlight watching, waiting for _Sinbad_ to take his bait.

***

It had been an accident.

Sometimes anger got the better of people. Jealousy too. She knew that more than anyone, learned that better than anyone in her second life. But she never saw what happened to her as something vindictive—something done to hurt her for someone else’s benefit.

It had been an accident.

Fame made things rot quicker. Fame made people more distant. Fame tended to muddy the waters. No one was ever truly prepared for the consequences of fame, but once they were aware it was too late—they were either too far gone, or lost everything in one moment.

It had been an accident.

***

She grappled with the Parthevian soldier as quietly as possible. He was the only one on duty, guarding the docks of Baal’s island with just a sword and a small amount of supplies at the stairs, and Karima knew at any moment now he would be relieved by someone else. Her physical fights with Sinbad had been an unintentional practice for this moment—he was stronger, sure, but Karima had learned quickly that if she timed her movements right, she could lock her limbs around someone and keep them in a headlock until they passed out. She’d been yelled at the first time she’d pulled it off with Sinbad (Esra noticed the bruising rather quickly), but her idiot brother was too determined to overcome her method of subduing him with repeated practice.

It helped that this soldier was young, not much older than herself, and he wasn’t the kind who appeared to be all muscle and no second guesses. She was screwed if she had to face off against someone with a little more experience.

Her crudely made bow was cast aside for a better one, Esra’s earring fastened to the upper limb. Karima had only intended on stealing some arrows, but upgrading her own handiwork for something much more professionally made was appealing enough to make her pause. There was, of course, no _sure_ way to gauge how strong the dragons in the dungeon were—much less how strong the dragon whose eye she needed to open the door—but if she played her cards right and salvaged arrows where she could… Maybe she could do it?

It’d be a pretty painful way to go, if she was wrong.

For all the importance Baal posed for Parthevia, the soldiers guarding it seemed somewhat lax. Their rounds were infrequent, their investigations of suspicious sounds sloppy, and not a single commanding officer told them to shape their shit up. Karima would’ve been offended if it didn’t make it easier for her to sneak in. In fact, the only issue left with no guards stopping her was, well… Baal didn’t look like Baal.

Sure, the first chapter of a prequel was hard to remember in full—but the first arc wasn’t all that tough to remember. Baal looked like Amon did, but what stood before her was far from the looming tower and giant doors.This was more fitting of some kind of greenhouse, especially around the top, and the columns wrapped in vines had more life to them than Baal’s empty entrance ever did. This _was_ Baal, wasn’t it? Yunan wouldn’t just sink the first dungeon and replace it with something else, right? Not to mention, Judar—the one person who _did_ sink Yunan’s dungeons actively—wasn’t even born yet.

No, no. He was born. But he was still learning to walk, let alone use his magic. Hard to remember sometimes that shit hit the fan when everyone was just sixteen or so.

As one guard stood by the entrance, falling asleep on the spot, Kari licked her lips and flexed her cold fingers. Okay. Crunch time. All she had to do was just… not get electrocuted or die. Piece of cake.

A piece of cake, until voices barked at her from below; guards who hadn’t noticed her earlier suddenly alert and readying their weapons, their commanding officer shouting orders and demanding Karima halt. Obviously, she wasn’t about to do that. Karima jumped to her feet and bolted for the door, slugging the guard in the face with all her might and successfully staggering him enough to shove him aside. She may have been poor and from a village where some people went without food, but she’d been damned if she couldn’t keep up with the adults around her. If a fourteen-year-old could be a high ranking officer, noble birth or not, then Karima could at least attempt to keep up with them.

A fourteen-year-old, she noted once she reached for the door, who happened to be pursuing her. The split second between the door opening, dragging Karima into the dungeon, and the turn of her gaze over her shoulder gave her the barest of glances of long, green hair and a red earring reflecting moonlight on the young soldier’s shoulder.

He screamed for her—for _Sinbad_ —to stop, but it fell on deaf ears as the dungeon finally pulled her through. She thought it would feel warm, like she was being pulled in a direction she needed to go, but Karima’s thoughts quickly shifted from the expectation. It had to have been a detail she skimmed over, deemed unimportant or something; she _definitely_ didn’t recall the gross feeling overtaking her whole body, coating her like some kind of membrane and reminding her far, _far_ too much of unsavoury things. But it was a merciful experience, at least, the mucous sensation washing off of her as Karima began her descent.

Pillars of light scattered all around, reaching out from the globe before her and into other doors—perhaps other dungeons, she wondered idly. She was weightless, floating down and down and down, until finally she could make out some of the dungeon before her.

The cavernous expanse, filled with craggy structures and waterfalls and dragons galore. None of it was there. The light that blinded her for just a moment faded, her body crashing onto an uneven structure unceremoniously; where she expected something akin to an underground ecosystem, Karima found only stairs.

Stairs—above her, below her, beside her. Like something out of _Relativity_ , but… definitely a lot more realistic in appearance. She was pretty sure Escher hadn’t anticipated his painting of an alternate reality having a more realistic counterpart.

When she pulled herself to her feet, she was suddenly aware of her hair beginning to rise. Rise? Karima blinked, reaching back for the ponytail—but when she felt the quiver of arrows shift, rattle like they were about to fall out, she quickly changed her tune and yanked the quiver off of her shoulder. She slammed a hand over the opening, and it didn’t take long for her to figure out just what the hell was going on.

Escher painting, but without the equally distributed gravity. She wasn’t one to jump to assumptions—not in a scenario like this—but as Karima looked up at the stairs above her, where her hair was being pulled towards, she’d garner a guess that jumping from her current spot would result in her plummeting to the stairs above her.

Karima swallowed the thick lump forming in her throat. Right. So the biggest thing she had to avoid was plummeting through a space _without_ stairs to catch her.

***

Being a _wunderkind_ was worse than being famous, in a way. The expectations were higher, the pressure was heavier, and the falling outs always cut deeper.

It was isolating and suffocating all the same. When you acted normally you were either showing off or praised as some kind of hero. When you underperformed you were always told the same things: You should be smarter than this, better than this, better than everyone else. Second place was never good enough, so why would being normal be any better?

You either crumbled under the pressure and hit rock bottom, fading into obscurity and rebuilding what you once were with missing pieces and brittle remains; or you persevered, othering yourself and becoming the very thing normal loathed.

And soon enough you would come to loathe yourself too.

***

She decided, far too late, that this was definitely not Baal. It wasn’t the lack of dragons or immediate death traps that convinced her, but rather the absolute silence that permeated through each room of stairs. She couldn’t even hear her own footsteps, though Karima would admit she was being quiet to avoid someone else hearing her—but that was beside the point! It just felt… eerie. Lifeless. There was _nothing_ in this dungeon, and she was woefully unprepared for whatever dangers it held.

Maybe she should have let Sinbad conquer this one. Maybe if she’d known it wasn’t Baal…

No, even if it was Baal, she’d still be at a disadvantage compared to him. She could count her blessings that this dungeon didn’t immediately try to kill her, especially since all she had was limited skill and limited arrows.

She lucked out.

But, she thought as she ascended another level of stairs, it was still a labyrinth in its own right. There was still no clear way of knowing how to reach the innermost part of the dungeon, let alone what it would look like, and this certainly wouldn’t be a Belial situation. Whoever governed this place wasn’t going to outright meet their potential King Vessel and call it a day, that much was apparent. Karima was going to be tested and she was going to have to keep her wits about her.

If it was a test of willpower, however, she was going to fail soon enough. The rooms were blending together, and she was more than certain that she’d been going around in circles most of the time she was in the dungeon. Karima pursed her lips as she slowly sat down along the latest staircase, no longer needing to keep track of anything falling suddenly. She leaned against its rails, heaving a sigh, and took a moment to catch her breath.

Maybe there was a pattern with the stairs. Lots of video games had levels like this in them—ah, but she never had time to play them… Maybe if she left markers along the way? But with what, she asked herself quickly? If she damaged the arrowheads too much they’d be useless. And though Esra’s earring was metal, it was still too thin to withstand being used for markers.

Karima clicked her tongue. Maybe she should’ve bought some other things inside with her. Not that she’d have _known_ she’d need them, but still.

The more she mulled over the dilemma, the more time passed. She began tapping her heel on the stairs, annoyed at her situation more than anything, and if not for the confined space she’d be pacing too. As much as she was a planner, she wasn’t a problem solver. Mazes got on her nerves, riddles made her want to lash out, and anything _close_ to mind tricks like this just gave her a headache. Whoever raised this dungeon probably knew she’d show up instead of Sinbad and put it there to fuck with her. That, or this was a djinn who just straight up made a personal hell for those who attempted to conquer the place.

Karima came to a halt and heaved a sigh. She raised her bow, fiddled lightly with the earring fastened to it. By now Sinbad and Esra had to have noticed her gone—maybe it had been a few days already. It wasn’t like they _knew_ where she was, since reading and writing wasn’t big in Tison, but given how soon it was after Sinbad’s conscription… they weren’t so stupid that they couldn’t figure that much out.

 _He won’t follow you_ , she told herself. _Esra would forbid him leaving in case something happened to both of her children._

But then… Esra _had_ been the one to convince him to enter the dungeon in the manga. It wouldn’t be farfetched to believe she’d convince Sinbad to follow Karima and help her come back home alive.

Karima gripped the bow tightly. She had to hurry; if Sinbad did follow her, there was no telling how much more time he’d spent in the dungeon compared to her. She’d lose her advantage of time, and then where would she be? Chasing down an all powerful dumbass with a taste for adventure, that was where.

And then came the cherry on top. She was fully prepared to run with wild abandon through the labyrinth, arrows secured in their quiver and bow held tightly in her hand, but nothing ever seemed to go right for Karima. Destiny favoured the reincarnation of David, and a reincarnation of David Karima was not. She should have been less surprised, as well, when the tip of Drakon’s sword poked into her back almost like a warning.

“Finally caught you,” he snarled, “Sinbad. I knew it was a matter of time before you tried to steal the treasure of this dungeon for yourself.”

She swallowed thickly. The sword at her back was definitely breaking skin, the barest sensation of blood slowly dragging down her spine making her more than aware of how unlucky she truly was right now. So busy focusing on keeping Sinbad away, and she completely forgot Drakon.

Like hell she was risking fighting him _here_ of all places. Karima was more likely to fall off the stairs and into oblivion, and that would be far worse than having to chaperone an overpowered idiot for a brother. Karima swallowed a thick lump in her throat and sucked in a deep breath. Just as Drakon continued in, “Turn around slowly,” she jumped into action.

Perhaps a little too literally.

She practically flung herself into the air, arms outstretched in an attempt to be caught by the gravity of the stairs above her. She felt the tug on her fingertips, clawed at the force, and just as Drakon slashed at her Kari’s body plummeted up into the staircase. She crashed onto the uneven surface hard, landing on her back like her initial entrance; she hit the stairs so hard that she almost bounced back down to where the young noble was waiting, momentarily confused by the sudden change in scene.

She was quick enough to catch herself before she fell back down, planting her feet on the stairs and all but rooting herself to the ceiling stairs; she was not, however, quick enough to save all of her arrows from falling from the quiver. Karima barely caught three of them, cursed herself for forgetting that much so soon, and locked eyes with Drakon as the rest of her arrows bounced off the stairs beneath her and soared down into the oblivion below.

They stared for a moment, neither willing to move first. With this new knowledge, it wouldn’t take long for Drakon to give chase—he definitely had to have more coordination for this sort of thing than she did. He broke the stare first, finally taking in the stairs all around them; as he did, Karima broke into a sprint and ascended the stairs she’d landed on.

Drakon jumped. He landed on the edge of the stairs. He caught himself by hooking his sword through the railing. Karima couldn’t help the exasperated, “Oh, come on,” she wheezed at how quickly he adapted.

At the top of the stairs was the outline of a door, no wall surrounding it but more than enough of an invitation for Karima to run through. If she could just lose him through the labyrinth, find the innermost sanctum before him—but then what if he got stuck inside when she did? Drakon was integral to the plot, even if only in the beginning. He wasn’t a small catalyst like Yunan. Drakon actually had an arc and made ripples. She stumbled, losing her grip on her bow; it flew through the outline of the door, just as Drakon demanded, “ _Halt, Sinbad!_ ”

Karima gritted her teeth and practically flung herself after her bow with the shout of, “I’m not Sinbad!”

Her body passed through the doorway. Instead of stairs and Drakon biting at her heels, there was a flat, smooth expanse. Silence, save for the sound of wind blowing.

Was this it? The innermost sanctum? It had been so easy—there was no way that was it, right?

Her eyes adjusted slowly to the newfound sunlight hitting her. She felt around for her bow, heard it clutter a short distance away. Karima crawled to her feet, still caught in her stumble, but she was far, far calmer now. If Drakon had wound up in the same place as her, he’d have caught up by now. She could take her time again, within reason.

Karima turned for the doorway. She’d heard of some video games having levels where you couldn’t see past a door, but this was wild in practice. She blinked, vision clearing. When she caught the vague outline of a door, she began to rub her eyes and steadied her breathing.

She knew this door.

It felt like yesterday she saw this door. But it had to have been far longer, especially given the last fourteen years she’d been living. There was still no way she wouldn’t recognise _this_ door, though—the door to the roof of her high school. The last door she’d ever passed through.

Everything began to piece itself together. As Karima’s gaze shifted from the sliding door and its warnings to stay off the roof, more of her school came into view. The low gate outlining the area, the supplies left by the door that needed to be packed away, the small garden one of the clubs had started.

Karima’s heart leapt into her chest. If she searched hard enough, she’d find a pair of shoes she once prayed didn’t mean what she thought it had.

This was where she'd died.


	3. III

**III.**

They never even saw her as she approached from behind.

The rooftop bathed in the afternoon glow of the sun, the fencing around the roof fragile and warped from wind over time. The dungeon had long since vanished behind her, the door shutting as a uniform-clad girl— _her_ , the girl Karima used to be—sprinted out with a screech. Drakon wasn’t following; she didn’t think he was, at least. For all Karima knew, he was seeing the same thing as she was and the two were just as unaware of each other as the girls on the rooftop were.

She remembered this vividly when she’d first been born. The nightmares were the only reasons she cried like a normal baby would instead of being quiet and causing her parents to worry. That jolt of fear when she’d seen one of her teammates on the edge of the roof, having snuck through a hole in the fence to gaze at the concrete jungle below. She remembered being Mitsuki, heart frozen in her throat and suffocating her as she stared at Rika through the fence. She remembered saying the things the girls in front of her wept and sobbed in their panic.

“ _Rikki, what are you doing!?_ ”

Right, she’d barely waited for a response before climbing through the hole to join her. Karima walked forward, a snail’s pace compared to Mitsuki, and she gazed through the fence almost longingly. How far away this world felt now, how long ago this one fright felt. Uncharacteristic emotions flying about, tears dripping down her face when she was normally so composed. She was supposed to be immovable, everyone said so, and yet she proved them all wrong to just one person. One person she wasn’t even sure would live longer than a few more minutes.

No wonder she’d been so desperate at the time. The idea of death wasn’t familiar. She’d heard of it in passing, but never experienced it close to home. How ironic, that her second life would be rife with it.

Karima let out a slow breath and looked away from the scene. This was clearly a test of the dungeon’s Djinn. It wasn’t much of a clue to the kind of Djinn it was, but she knew for certain now that this wasn’t Baal’s dungeon by a long shot. Yunan must have chosen a different one to erect in Parthevia. Karima briefly wondered if a different Djinn would mean a different fate with regards to Sinbad, but the thought was quickly purged from her mind as she shook her head. It didn’t matter who the Djinn was, Sinbad was always going to be as rotten to the core as he was in the original series. The issue wasn’t even the Djinn—it was David getting exactly what he wanted and having access to Sinbad’s body, his supposed reincarnation.

Sinbad wasn’t the whole problem. But he was the vessel of the problem and its chaos.

Karima pinched her brow and sighed once more. God, she really should’ve “accidentally” killed him when they were toddlers. “Accidentally” pushing him off their dad’s boat during a storm wasn’t that hard to do. Damn her conscience and self-awareness, feeling guilt over plotting the murder of a toddler back then.

Whatever. It didn’t matter now. Right now, she was here and Sinbad wasn’t and she just had to make sure he _never_ got his hands on any of his Djinn. And if this happened to be one of the greedy bastard’s Djinn in the original timeline, then more power to her. Karima pulled her bow from her shoulder and felt for an arrow from her quiver. She’d lost quite a few with that mishap with Drakon, but she still had enough to prove a point. All Djinns tested those who trespassed, and all Karima had to do was figure out which kind of test this was.

She looked at Mitsuki, at her old self begging with Rika to come back off the roof with her. She thought back to the endless staircases, the way she could float around like gravity shifted with her, and licked her lips. Air or light. It had to be one of those two. But if this test was a whole rooftop of her past, then it certainly couldn’t be just air.

Light, then. Karima blinked and looked up to the sky, and with a confident, unimpressed shout, she declared, “Showing me how I died won’t deter me!”

“What?”

She startled, drew her bow on reflex as she whirled on her feet. Drakon stood behind her, sword drawn and ready to strike, but he was hesitating. Had he heard her? How long had he been able to see her? When did he come through the door?

“Say that again,” he ordered her. Karima furrowed her brows, glanced back over her shoulder. Seeing modern day Japan would’ve been confusing enough. Explaining that the girl begging and pleading will all her might was also her? Impossible. Reincarnation wasn’t even something these people knew much about, save for a few people who warred with Kou and lost their cultures to their idea of unification. Them, and Al Thamen, but it was obvious even to someone reading just the prequel that Drakon was never with Al Thamen.

“You misheard me,” Karima said quickly. She looked back to him, arrow still nocked and bowstring still drawn. “The dungeon is showing us an illusion. For all I know, you’re one too.”

No, he probably wasn’t. A lazy Djinn would make the two of them duke it out for the right of kingship.

No. A lazy Djinn would do what Valefor did. Karima was at least thankful she didn’t have to catch a cat that could jump insane heights. But she still didn’t like her chances of taking down a fourteen-year-old military general from a noble family.

Fighting dirty, then.

As Drakon glanced between her and the scene behind her, Karima sized him up. Legs were covered with just fabric, most of the armour was on his upper body. He was probably used to holding a shield to cover his lower half in a battle. He was pretty close, no chances to miss him, and Karima had made sure she could still accurately shoot an arrow even after being reborn. She wasn’t a champion archer as Mitsuki for no reason.

She quickly dropped her aim, letting the arrow loose, and it pierced his thigh with a loud _thunk_. Drakon howled, caught by surprise, and dropped to one knee as he looked down at the arrow in his leg. He may have been trying to kill her, but she still liked the guy. He was one of the few characters to call Sinbad out on his bullshit before he was turned into a yes-man like Ja’far.

Karima gave him a quick salute, telling him, “Nothing personal,” and immediately sprinting for the fence. If this was a test, then she needed to reach the inner chamber and meet with the Djinn. This was just another wall to overcome, another way to prove she was worthy. Maybe she had to forsake her past, her bitterness about _where_ she’d found herself born, and look to the future. Cheesy, but probably something this Djinn valued.

She pushed herself through the hole in the fence. She threaded her fingers through the gaps, held herself steady, and for a brief moment considered actually apologising properly to Drakon. If he got a limp from that thing, it’d be her fault. Maybe he’d be smart enough not to aggravate it? She hoped so.

She heard Mitsuki slip from the edge of the roof beside her. She squeezed her eyes shut, flinched, and listened as Rika took hold of her hands and held onto her with a laboured grunt. Any minute now Mitsuki would drop, and the existence known as Karima would begin.

“ _Hey, Mitsuki-san_.”

Karima froze. Slowly, she opened her eyes. The tone Rika had used… Had she really spoken to her so harshly? Like she was happy Mitsuki was about to fall? She dared a peek, focusing on Rika more than Mitsuki; Rika was holding onto the fence too, cuts beginning to form on her fingers from the pressure of it all, and in her other hand was the wrist of Mitsuki.

But Rika was looking at Karima.

“ _Do you know how much it hurts to fall from a pedestal so high up?_ ”

Karima’s breath caught in her throat. Her heart stopped hammering away, her body silent and in shock at the words. What?

“ _Why don’t we find out?_ ”

Mitsuki dropped to the ground. For a brief, solid second, she was able to scream. And then that scream was overpowered by bones shattering within her body, blood spraying along the concrete below.

From his spot on the roof, still in pain, Drakon seemed to have witnessed the same thing. She wasn’t sure what she was more surprised to see—that he wasn’t trying to kill her yet too, or that someone raised to be a soldier and hold his own life above so many others’ would be _appalled_ by the sight of Rika letting Mitsuki die so easily.

He crashed into the gate, right behind Rika, and he reached through it to grab the collar of her uniform. His hand went right through her, but still he shouted, “What’s the matter with you!? She was trying to help! Why didn’t you pull her up!?”

It was a knee-jerk reaction on Karima’s part, insisting, “She wasn’t meant to do that!”

She wasn’t lying or making excuses for Rika. For months, almost years after she was reborn, the same scene had played in her head over and over. What could’ve been done different? What could’ve been improved? Should Mitsuki have done something smarter? And it was always that last fleeting look she saw that haunted her. That last sentence she barely heard the end of.

Rika’s gaze was empty as she stared at Karima. Drakon still tried to grab her. He still, inexplicably, phased through her.

“ _Mitsuki-san, did it hurt a lot?_ ”

Karima inched closer to her, brows furrowed. This was part of the test, she reminded herself. Rika was acknowledging her now, so Karima had to do something. But what could she do? The scene was wrong. Rika wasn’t meant to drop Mitsuki—she was meant to—

“ _Mitsuki-san. Don’t ignore me like you always do. Answer me_.”

Rika leaned closer to the edge. Karima panicked and blurted out, “It hurt! It was the most painful thing I ever felt!”

A cruel smile blossomed on Rika’s face. “ _Really?_ ” was her disembodied reply. Karima shuddered. “ _Then maybe… You know how it feels to be in your shadow_.”

Rika slid her eyes shut, that smile still on her face. Karima wasn’t sure what to do—how to feel. Everything was wrong. Rika was never this malicious, never this sadistic. Not even to Mitsuki. She knew her status as a young, up and coming star in her field of choice, in the very same thing Rika had dedicated her life to and fell short of _because_ of Mitsuki, would cause tension and make relationships with others hard—but Rika _never_ blamed others for her suffering. Rika bottled things up, blamed herself, loathed herself.

It was why Mitsuki had been so quick to crawl through the fence and try bring her back to solid ground. Mitsuki knew Rika, knew her tendencies. Mitsuki knew Rika never let her fall on purpose.

As Rika leaned forward, wind catching her hair as she began to fall, Karima lunged forward and managed to fine purchase on Rika’s uniform. The fabric tore, Rika’s serene smile still on her face, and lifeless eyes gazed up at her as she struggled to keep her grip.

“She wasn’t meant to let me fall!” Karima screamed at Rika. That same blank smile stared back at her. “She was meant to try and help me! _She was scared to let me fall!_ ”

The fabric tore further. Rika dropped a few inches. Karima could feel her grip loosening on the uniform as gravity tried to drag Rika down.

“Rika wasn’t a murderer!” she went on. “She was just lost and I was stupid and made her panic even more! Don’t you _dare_ slander her like that in front of me!”

Rika tilted her head innocently. She was able to let loose one single giggle, amused almost, before the fabric of her uniform tore completely. Rika plummeted. Plummeted. Plummeted.

She never landed on the ground. There was no sickening crunch, no splatter of blood. There was just Mitsuki, finally breathing her last breath as the light faded from her.

For a brief while, nothing happened. Karima and Drakon stood silent and still, stunned and horrified all the same. Processing everything wasn’t easy, and it probably wasn’t going to be easy even if they started putting effort into understanding it all. For Drakon, this was a whole new world that someone from his

own apparently knew about, knew people in. For Karima… She wasn’t sure what to call this. But it wasn’t _right_. It felt so wrong, so slimy and dirty and _terrible_ , and all she could do was stare at the piece of torn uniform in her hand as her grip on the fence slackened.

But with silence always came something to break it. And Drakon, though the more clueless of the two, was certainly the braver.

“You said you weren’t Sinbad.” His voice was quiet, like he was afraid to disturb the dead below. He wasn’t angry, even if he had every right to be with that arrow in his thigh right now. “Are you a relative of his?”

Karima sniffed. She nodded. The fabric was beginning to bloom red, and as Karima noticed she began to feel a dull ache in her fingers. Hell, she’d torn her nails. At least she was ambidextrous as Karima.

“I have… many questions,” Drakon said slowly. “But I’ll only ask you one for now. How did you know what was supposed to happen?”

She let go of the fabric. The wind blew it softly through he wind before it finally began its slow descent. Within the blink of an eye, much like Rika, it too vanished into nothing. After that brief moment of reliving her time as Mitsuki, the voice of Karima didn’t feel right. It felt foreign. Like she was in the wrong body.

“Rukh,” she lied. It wasn’t entirely wrong. Her soul, it was still rukh. But Karima was far from a magician or a magi capable of seeing it, reading it, communicating it, _controlling it_. It was just far easier to play the part of a prophet, or some kind of sensitive soul attuned to the flow of the rukh than tell the truth.

What was she even doing here? If she wanted to live a peaceful life without worrying about Sinbad, there were plenty of other things to do. She could’ve just been a reliable older sister, like Esra and Badr expected her to be. She could’ve gotten married by now and dolled herself up to support the family. Esra could’ve gotten medicine, and without Yunan to inspire him, Sinbad could’ve been a simple merchant. Would Sinbad have even survived this dungeon, anyway? He may have been blessed to know the “right” path, but something like this wasn’t easily solved by the mind. The heart was fickle. The heart could be swayed.

A heart like Sinbad’s might have fallen to this dungeon easily, and Karima’s worries would’ve been eased.

What a waste.

She looked down at Mitsuki. At the stupid decision that ended her life and started Karima’s. “What a waste,” she repeated aloud.

“Hey.”

She gave Drakon an unimpressed, weak look over her shoulder at him. She was still on the other side of the fence, and he’d since moved to the hole to lean through—reach out to her, much like Mitsuki should’ve reached for Rika instead of panicking.

“I won’t attack you,” Drakon reassured her. “If this is a place riddled with illusions, it would be suicide to work against each other.”

Such a poor choice of words. Karima shook her head and sighed.

“I don’t know how to beat the dungeon,” she told him. “I expected beasts to fight and doors to open. I expected to have to fight _you_. Instead I got a scene I wish I didn’t have to witness and an insult to someone close to my heart.”

“Theories, then,” he tried. “You worked out the stairs quickly. You moved for the edge for a reason. Why?”

She chewed her lip. She looked down at Mitsuki’s body. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for anymore.

“I thought if I just kept going deeper, I’d reach the inner sanctum,” she sighed. “But it was stupid. If this is a trap, I walked right into it.”

Drakon still held his hand out to her. He still insisted on getting her off the roof. She never pegged him for the patient type, from what she saw of him with Sinbad. He was always hot-headed and competitive with Sinbad, but here and now—Drakon was a stranger.

Karima clicked her tongue. She wasn’t in the mood to re-enact the scene a third time. With careful shuffling and a strong grip on the fence, she inched her way back to Drakon and took his hand.

“Sorry I shot you in the leg,” she said half-heartedly. “I’m not gonna get whipped for daring to harm nobility, am I?”

Drakon gave her a disgruntled, but affirmative look. Under normal circumstances? Absolutely. Karima sighed to herself, equally displeased, and when they were back on the safety of the roof, she decided to at least try to make up for it somehow. Better to keep her new “ally” happy while it lasted. Especially if she still had to fight him for the Djinn’s favour.

**Author's Note:**

> Do I want death? Yes. Is this AU fuelling me? Also yes. I went absolutely rabid planning this with a friend and I Gotta share it. Big thank you to the friends I gifted this to, this AU would never have gotten as far as it did without y'all reigniting my Magi fixation and helping me plot.


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